


Find Family (an exercise for the advanced mage)

by Neceros



Category: Mother of Learning - nobody103
Genre: Gen, Post-Loop Conversations, not so much about finding family as about relearning the family you had, thank god one of these idiots is good at being social
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:28:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26234173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neceros/pseuds/Neceros
Summary: Zorian knows exactly where he stands in relation to his family, but Daimen needs to work on that.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40





	Find Family (an exercise for the advanced mage)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cal14](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cal14/gifts).



> With thanks to Cal, who has almost singlehandedly kept the tumblr Mother of Learning fandom afloat for so long.

Daimen would be lying if he said that this new Zorian’s unstructured magic skills weren’t a little intimidating. 

They made sense, of course. Being psychic meant that unstructured mind magic was much more useful than structured mind magic, mages with smaller mana pools tended to develop their shaping skills further than others to make the most out of what they had, and this Zorian had apparently studied under Xvim Chao for decades. 

But just because Daimen understood where they came from didn’t make those skills any less impressive. It had taken him weeks to notice the web of magical threads Zorian spread almost everywhere he went! And he might never have noticed at all, if not for the way that Zorian casually used magic to move things without looking at them when he was around people who knew about his true abilities. Daimen had met Denen Shutta during a hunt once, and even the bear shifter of the Immortal Eleven hadn’t demonstrated the kind of thoughtless finesse that Zorian had.

Still, if that had been the limit of Zorian’s abilities, it wouldn’t have been too strange. Moving objects and mana manipulation were common skills for mages to focus on, given how useful they were for both spellcasting and everyday situations. It was the sheer breadth of Zorian’s unstructured magic that made him truly impressive. 

Based only on what Daimen had seen, his little brother could create force constructs, safely dispel simple spells, reshape objects, make drinks non-alcoholic (for some unfathomable reason), craft illusions, and even create some very impressive wards. And that list didn’t even include Zorian’s absolute mastery of unstructured mind magic, or the dimensionalism skills that Daimen hadn’t personally witnessed, or the various other kinds of magic that Zorian was still working on. 

All of which was to say that it really shouldn’t have been a surprise when Zorian told him, without casting a single spell, that there was no need to go to the train station because their parents were at least an hour away. 

~~~~~~~

Before Daimen could say anything, Kirielle looked back at Zorian. “Does that mean I can go play?”

“I told you to stop moving around.” It was clearly a halfhearted complaint; Zorian had already caught her half-braided hair with magic. As Kirielle obediently faced forward again, he took the braid back in hand and began finishing it up. “And yes, you can play with Kana. Just don’t leave the house, alright? I don’t want to have to go looking for you when they show up.”

“Fiiiine.” Kirielle held still for exactly as long as it took Zorian to put on a hair tie before zipping out of the room. 

As the door slammed behind her, Daimen cocked an eyebrow at Zorian expectantly. Unsurprisingly, his antisocial little brother responded with a grumpy face and a defensive “What?”

Tempting as it was to comment on what an adorable picture it made when Zorian mothered Kirielle, that was sure to lead to put him in a surly mood and prevent any reasonable discussion for the rest of the day. Better to talk about something else. And besides, he was curious… “How did you know Mother and Father were delayed?”

He was really hoping that the answer didn’t involve a magical tracker on one of them. But he honestly couldn’t see how else Zorian could know their location at such a distance. It was a worrying possibility. He knew Zorian had a poor relationship with their parents, and he even understood to a certain degree. Still, placing a tracker on them suggested a disturbing level of disassociation from them that he really hadn’t seen coming.

But annoyingly enough, Zorian just looked confused. Like he didn’t see how Daimen could possibly not understand something as simple as being able to sense the absence of two people in a fifty-mile radius. 

Zorian’s moment of confusion stretched on long enough that Daimen was about to clarify his question when Zorian responded hesitantly. “It’s… the find family shaping exercise?”

Daimen was embarrassed to realize how relieved he was to hear that. No matter how much this Zorian had changed, he should have had more faith in his brother. “I hadn’t heard of that one. A divination exercise, I assume?”

“Divination and blood magic. You use the blood in your own body to connect to anyone related to you, so it gets a pretty good range.” Zorian seemed to relax as well now that they were discussing something he was comfortable with. 

“That’s pretty impressive,” Daimen said. And he meant it, too. Whatever issues Daimen had with trusting his brother, Zorian’s skills were objectively amazing. “Normally you’d need a bunch of limiters to get that kind of range, no matter what connection you were using.”

“Well, you can get around that with good enough mana control. When I started using it, I could only get a few meters of range.” 

“That makes sense.” Although that level of mana control was insane. “But where did you learn this exercise, anyway? I’ve never heard of it, and I’ve spent most of my career studying divinations.”

Zorian hummed thoughtfully. “I… think I learned it from the aranea? Or I might have made it up— it’s a fairly obvious extension of the blood magic exercises to sense your blood and life force.” After another minute of thought, he shrugged. “I can’t remember. It would be the aranea if it was anyone, though. They’re big on unstructured divination.”

“Hm.” Daimen looked at Zorian, already beginning to look around for the book he’d been reading. Maybe it was selfish of him to not want the conversation to end just yet when Zorian clearly wanted exactly that. But as a brother, the distance between the two of them had always bothered Daimen. Though not as much as it should have. The notes left to him by his other selves had made that abundantly clear.

And now, with this new Zorian, it had apparently reached the point where Daimen was genuinely considering the possibility of his brother placing illegal spells on their parents. Truly, he was a failure of a brother. 

And the worst part was that it was entirely Daimen’s fault. New Zorian put Daimen on edge, sure, but he had done more than his fair share of reaching out. Between the two of them, Daimen was the one who was distanced and guarded. Literally, given that Daimen was under a mind shield spell and Zorian wasn’t. 

Maybe this was an opportunity for Daimen to reach back. “Could you teach it to me?”

That got Zorian’s attention. His head practically whipped around as he turned a befuddled stare on Daimen. “Why would you need me to teach you? I know you know the identify family spell, and I’m almost certain you know the sense blood exercise. Between the two of those, you’re ninety percent of the way there. You don’t need me to figure this out.”

Daimen sighed internally. Time for the direct approach. “I want to spend time with you, Zorian. Yes, I could do this on my own, but I’d rather work with you. I know we don’t have much in common, but we at least share an interest in magic. Talking about shared passions is an important part of building any relationship,” he added. Maybe that last part was unnecessary, but for all that this Zorian was more mature, he still seemed to be fairly clueless about social interactions.

Case in point, Zorian seemed intensely uncomfortable with that admission. “You really don’t have to do that. I told you, it’s been a long time since I was angry with you. I let go of that years ago.”

Well, that was a lie. Or an exaggeration, at least. Zorian might have let go of his anger, but he definitely still felt uncomfortable around his oldest brother. Daimen didn’t need to be an empath to see that. He had a few guesses as to why that was, but until Zorian said something, it was probably best to let him process at his own pace. Rather than address that statement directly, Daimen decided to approach it from a different angle. 

Besides, some things needed to be said. 

Making sure he was looking his brother in the eyes as earnestly as possible, he said “You’ve changed, Zorian. But I haven’t. I am still the same brother that let our family tear itself apart while fooling myself into thinking that everything was perfectly alright, and the only reason that changed is because dozens of other versions of myself told me so and you gave me another chance. If I want to keep that from happening again, it’s my responsibility as the eldest brother to do my best to understand all of my siblings.”

Daimen’s empathy informed him that Zorian was almost uncomfortable enough to run away. He looked away, giving Zorian an opportunity to break eye contact. Staring out the window instead, he affected a more casual tone as he continued. “If you don’t want to teach me the exercise, that really is okay. The gods know I could never match your shaping skills. I just want to spend a little time with you.”

Zorian felt a little less agitated, but he still seemed to be painfully embarrassed. A little humor would likely settle him. Daimen wanted to make a different offer anyway. “Or better yet, maybe I could teach you something! I regret not taking more time to teach you and Fortov magic when we were kids. It was the least I could have done for you, y’know? And now you’re such a talented archmage there’s probably nothing I could teach you!” He finished with a hearty laugh. 

As expected, Zorian couldn’t possibly pass up either an opportunity to prove Daimen wrong or a chance to learn a new piece of magic. With a glint in his eye he responded, “Well, that’s not quite true. There are plenty of kinds of magic that I couldn’t learn during the time loop, just because I didn’t have the time to focus on things that wouldn’t be helpful. That spell of yours that makes a giant ectoplasmic version of yourself, for example. I knew I’d never have the mana to justify a spell like that, but it does look pretty cool.”

Of all the things Zorian might want to learn, that had not been on the list. “I never taught you that?” He asked in surprise. 

Before Zorian could get offended and respond with some kind of scathing remark, he rushed to continue. “Well, no problem. I’d be happy to teach you. You’re good at simulacrums and animation, so it should be easy for you.” After all, the spell was basically a bastardized version of the simulacrum spell that used no soul magic and was a lot less independent. Zorian might have asked to learn it just for fun, but a few of the principles in it might actually be useful to Daimen’s little brother. 

With that heartwarming thought, Daimen began demonstrating the necessary invocation. Maybe, he thought, there was still hope for their broken family.


End file.
